Why so many of these power supplies fail

I searched for "repair mac pro power supply" which took me to this post. I was/am hoping that someone clever/resourceful has drilled down to determine why so many of these power supplies (Apple part# 614-0409) have failed. It is highly likely that the same component has failed on most of them. If someone has figured that out, and better yet sourced the component (if it's proprietary), please reply.

2 Answers

The issue you are facing is a nasty one as many companies faced it! A supplier of electrolytic capacitors flooded the market with bad units. Here's more: Capacitor Plague.

The problem was they took awhile to fail! The industry at the time did not mark the caps with date codes so its very difficult to have two in your hand knowing which was the bad unit. Only in testing one by one are you able to tell and even that is somewhat subjective!

They would need to have been properly flowed in the soldering process at factory.

$@$* like this is what makes us lose faith in Apple.

How can they dare ship MacPros with these dodgy PSUs, and won’t get them replaced, they’re so smart as to never ever let them die within the guarantee period.

Then they suddenly fail. Almost always just after the period ended.

$@$* PSUs, I guess Delta (the provider) is using monkeys in the soldering plant at their factory.

And eBay sellers are just making a profit on selling replacement units that maybe are just refurbished units that will fail also given enough time.

We gulp this and cope with this because of a brand’s undeserved reputation.

It’s all been a money drain since Steve Jobs left us.

Apple is no longer a winner game, it’s all bells and whistles but they don’t care about the power going to their MacPros. Please take the Pro nickname out, it’s not deserved.

They put us through all this $@$*, this hoops because they want us to obligue and not use our 2008-2010 MacPros anymore, they need to make a profit from us, they need to get us to buy a new “umbrella-cube” 3k-4K machine just because.

I hate those tactics.

Btw, it’s all about the soldering quality from factory, the damned relay switch inside the PSUs, and/or the temp sensor &&^&^$^ with all the security settings for switching it off just because.

No one wants to determine the real culprit because mos people are better off selling you a 200 or 300 bucks replacement.

Technical progress has become only a money drain and a huge waste of otherwise repairable units. Obsolescence and customer-obliguing tactics are the norm. No one cares anymore and they just are waiting for us to shell out the cash for a psu which could probably be repaired for ten or twenty bucks.